Immediate action: your most powerful asset

Immediate action 

The principle of immediate action is a simple, but important concept in business. Briefly stated, whenever you know you need to do something, do it immediately. Ten minutes from now it could be too late: your energy and excitement to do it might be lost. The world is liable to move on without you if you wait around for what you think is the right time.

Now obviously, the principle only includes actions that make sense for you to do. For example, don't call someone at 3AM if you remember at 3AM that you need to call that person. But if it's during normal business hours and it's something you could sensibly do now, then just do it now.

What are a couple of parameters to know if the thing is something you need to do now? Here are three:

1) You planned to do it now

How often do we make plans to do something and then when the time comes, we still don't want to do it? In this case, making the plan was a complete waste of time. When the time comes, trust that you were in a better frame of mind when you made the plan, and do what you need to do immediately.

2) You know it's the right thing to do

There's no way you'll keep up with the other guy if you don't know how to listen to your intuition. Your intuition isn't infallible, but it doesn't need to be. The point is to exercise your judgement and your willingness to trust your instincts. You need your instincts sharp so they'll serve you better on future occasions.

3) It won't take you that long to do

If it'll be done in fifteen minutes or less, just do it now. If it's something like cleaning and reorganizing your office, make a plan for it and do it in pieces. You'll create this great rhythm for your day where you move from one thing to the next and you're training yourself to act in that rhythm.

Useful activity is both a curative and a preventive medicine against all sorts of problems. Don't you want that now and not maybe next week sometime? So start taking immediate action with the things that are important to you. If you're looking for a place to start, you can subscribe for future updates, or by send me an email to let me know what you think.